Animal husbandry facilities, such as dairy or hog barns, include alleys or gutters for manure collection. Vehicles such as tractors or skid-steer loaders are equipped with scraper blades or front-end bucket systems to transfer manure accumulated in the alley or gutter to one end of the barn for removal and disposal. The manure is typically liquid or semi-liquid and is often difficult to transfer in this manner, as it escapes around the sides of the scraper blade or bucket. In addition, with the very large facilities that are becoming quite common in modern dairy farming, sometimes with an overall length in excess of 1000 feet, the quantity of accumulated material is too great to transfer to one end of the facility. As a result, there is a need for improvements in the collection and removal of manure from animal husbandry facilities.
Pneumatic collection of agricultural debris is used in a variety of operations both on and off the farm. For example, in the clean-up of spills of dry solid materials, such as grain or agricultural chemicals like fertilizer, vacuums are employed to pneumatically transfer the spilled materials to a storage container. An example of such a vacuum apparatus is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 4,218,226. These types of machines are not particularly well-suited to the collection of liquid or semi-liquid materials such as animal waste. Moreover, they lack any type of collection means for mounting beneath the apparatus to direct the collected material to the suction inlet when the apparatus is driven over the material, making them difficult to use in large scale mobile cleanup operations. Vacuum systems have been used for mobile cleanup of relatively dry manure, such as chicken and horse manure. U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,620 discloses a stall and pasture vacuum machine that includes a front mounted sled comprising a rotary brush. A mist of water may be provided to soften the manure and make it more amenable to pneumatic conveying. The collected manure is stored in a dump box with a hinged rear door. This machine is not suitable for the cleanup of liquid or semi-liquid materials.
Vacuum systems have been used in the clean-up of liquid and semi-liquid animal waste. U.S. Pat. No. 3,585,670 discloses an apparatus comprising a vacuum tank and a rear-mounted V-shaped scraper blade. However, in mounting the scraper blade at the rear of the apparatus, the manure is compacted prior to being collected, making it difficult to separate from the barn floor and difficult to convey pneumatically.
Another vacuum apparatus for the collection of liquid or semi-liquid manure is manufactured by Loewen Welding & Manufacturing (Matsqui, BC, Canada) under the trade-name Honey-Vac®. In this apparatus, the collected manure enters the back of the vacuum tank from the top thereof. Since the collected manure is also discharged from the back, there is no complete flushing from front to rear during discharge. This leads to an accumulation of manure in the front of the tank that diminishes tank capacity after repeated use. The accumulated manure must be periodically cleaned out through manual access hatches, which is a dangerous and unpleasant task. Also, the apparatus makes use of separate blower and vacuum pumps, which creates mechanical complexity and increases down time.
As a result, there remains a need for an improved material collection apparatus, particularly for liquid and semi-liquid materials such as animal manure.